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Some news from the past 8 weeks in Hong Kong! :)) Sorry I haven’t written here in a while! I have a Facebook group that I update with more short regular updates, let me know if you’d like added! 🙂

I’ve spent the past couple months adjusting to life in Asia! After a month and a half of living in base housing, I moved off base into an apartment close by to the base (in the same village of Shui Tau Tsuen, which is actually the oldest village in Hong Kong!) and I’m roommates with the only other Canadian girl on staff so that’s fun haha! Life has been busy (classic Hong Kong) and full of ups and downs but overall I feel peace with the decision to come here and it’s been incredible being in the same place as Ilalio and learning more about his culture and communication! 🙂 Thankful for your prayers! The two specific words I felt the Lord told me about this season (of unknown length) were: Rest & Lio at first I felt like it’s been so easy to get sucked into the spirit of busyness that runs HK, but I feel like the Lord reminded me of those last week and I’m trying to take steps towards actually being obedient to those words. Thank You, Jesus!

The past couple weeks I was put in co-charge of redesigning the base Library/Lounge area. I don’t have a complete ‘before’ picture but it was not a very inviting place haha but now it is warm and ready for a coffee bar to get constructed in the next few weeks! So excited to have been a part of this project that has really blessed the community here in YWAM Hong Kong.

The students for the next DTS are arriving this weekend and come Monday I will be helping in the Kitchen for the duration of the Lecture Phase (until June)! Cooking and doing food runs (Lio and I will to be going to the Chinese Wet Market a couple times a week to buy all the fresh produce and meat which is quite hilarious… pray for me because no one speaks English and it’s crazy fast paced ahhaha!!) I’ll also continue to serve the base with Worship leading and taking some time to process burnout and continue to spend time with Lio and helping pioneer the Homeless Ministry in the poor district of Sham Shui Po.

Also in 2 weeks I’ll be teaching a week on the DTS on the topic of Worship! This will be the students first official teaching week so pray that they are very impacted and inspired to engage and encounter the Living God this week and have deeper revelation about who He is and why we worship Him. Pray for me to have wisdom and discernment as I teach!

Also I will be going to the Philippines the first week of April! I’ll be going with Lio and his church. We’re going to be working with Kids International Ministries (KidsIM) and I’m so excited for this opportunity, we’ll be leading worship for the team twice a day along with helping the families that are going that have never been in a third world nation to adjust and to help them in ministry!

Annnnnd at the end of April I will be teaching a week on a School of Worship on the topic of Character of a Worshipper (Holiness etc). This is the first time I’ll be teaching a week including full translation into Mandarin! I can’t share which country due to safety reasons but I’m SO EXCITED! Please pray for grace as I learn to communicate a full theological teaching while also being translated haha! And 3/4 of the students don’t speak English at all! So the dynamics will be quite challenging but Holy Spirit is a great communicator so I have faith He will show up big time!! ❤

LOVE YOU GUYS Thank you for your prayers!! I miss Toowoomba but I’m thankful for opportunities to be challenged and to grow!

Things I’ve experienced about living in Hong Kong:

There are SO MANY cultures! 🙂 I love it! Although many of the people here are Chinese, there are many expats and ethnic minorities living in the city. Not to mention the domestic workers from Southeast Asian countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia. Many immigrants from Pakistan, Syria, Nepal, parts of Africa & even mainland China as well!

The food!! Hong Kong is very diverse! I can always find different types of food in almost every street of the city

The transport! So easy to get around, the MTR (metro), bus & ferry systems can get you virtually anywhere you want to go. Unfortunately it does take about an hour to get from our village to anywhere (we live up north west, near the border to China haha)

The crowds! It’s pretty crazy how many people can fit into one city! Sometimes to get on the train you have to get super aggressive and push people to fit hahah but that’s a really nice thing about living in a ‘village’ you can get away from the crowds and almost enjoy country life out here! Many people from the city actually come and tour the village and to visit the ‘Kam Tin Country Club’ haha look it up it’s pretty great

The Chinese Culture! It actually makes me cry, I love how rich this culture is with history and heritage. From the music, to street tai chi, to Chinese lanterns, to food, to respecting your elders, to crowded, loud street markets, to beautiful architecture, to martial arts… it’s all breath-taking ❤

We held a Soccer Tournament in our village and were able to share about Jesus during the half time! It was a hit and they all want to have another one!

We go out and worship on the streets on Friday nights!

We had a good laugh this outreach. Met someone new under the bridge with a nickname “water ghost”. He loves to drink, as his nickname denotes. He has a beautiful voice, no kidding, one that’s often sought after as a radio dj. The intense atmosphere from a few suspicious activities around us was eased by his singing- a classic song by Beyond. The wonder of songs, how it brings even a momentary hope and encouragement to those we sing or hear. He made a point that marijuana helps him in music, more than ice. One of us advocated other ways of music appreciation that is more freeing than with the use of drugs. As he danced around and sang in super high spirits 🎶, he said, “其實都唔一定high野先開心既⋯唱下歌都可以一樣咁開心~” [translation: actually (we) don’t always need drugs to be happy, singing songs can make me happy too ~], he said will a skip in his stride. He asked to join us for the rest of our outreach, with a lollipop in his mouth. He just kept talking and at one point, his lollipop fell out of his mouth. “Don’t worry, I have a lot more! 😄” he said with a good, hearty laugh, offering if we wanted one.

We also get to talk to and pray for homeless people. I really love this opportunity, they are mostly much older and very lonely! In this picture, Novelle and I were praying for a lady’s arm, she said she felt heat and felt much looser afterwards! 🙂 Thank You Jesus!

All the staff at our base, these guys are great! So many countries are in this picture: Brazil, America, Canada, South Africa, Fiji, Samoa, India, Philippines, Hong Kong, Singapore, & the Netherlands!

Chinese New Year lion dance

My Samoan family

My love

A couple of very special people in my life dropped by Hong Kong and got to meet Lio! Such a blessing!

So excited to share with you some photos of the past few months with YWAM Toowoomba! I’ve just finished leading my 4th DTS! So rewarding and I absolutely loved watching our 21 students from different nations grow in their walk with God, people, and themselves! There were salvations, baptisms, miracles (quite a few healings among the students! and salvations & healings in town and on overseas outreach), spiritual gifts received, heart changes, mind changes etc. etc. It was so sad to see the students leave last month, but also an amazing testimony to how God works! He is a sending God 🙂

Here are some pictures!

Pastor Dan (he is the director of the Atlanta Dream Center School Of Ministry I went to for three years) came to Toowoomba from Atlanta for the second time to teach the DTS on Lordship & Fear of the Lord. A powerful week, and such an honour to host him again!

I help lead worship at a city/church-wide worship evening that has a heart to worship & intercede over and for the city of Toowoomba. I love it and I’m so blessed to part of such a fun and beautiful night a couple times a month!

I had the incredible privilege of helping baptize heaps of students! I love baptisms, it’s probably one of my favourite parts of a DTS 🙂 And seeing how powerful it is every time! Students are never the same again!

I had the privilege to lead worship for a massive conference this school! The conference was a week long and there 6 YWAM bases that were there. Over 300 people on some nights! It was a powerful week focused on Prayer & Missions and marrying the two. Intimacy breeds proclamation! The students (and us staff too!) fell in love with prayer and the presence of God. We had overnight prayer happening and myself and several of our students joined in and sacrificed sleep but had a wonderful time interceding for Australia and the world!

We had a festival in the city on Easter Weekend and it was so fun to minister to the city through music & the love of Jesus. Myself and my friend Tori got to perform 3 sets in a cafe, and on stage at a couple markets!

I visited Hong Kong, and Lio for a few weeks! 😀 this is our first real pic as a couple haha ❤

This is a shot I took of an evangelism time we did while in Hong Kong. Tons of people were watching the performances and hearing the gospel!

YWAM Toowoomba held a fundraise to raise $1500 to get a child of the streets and out of the sex trade. We had a successful night & we’ve been able to get 7 (I think even in the past couple weeks we got another 2 as well!) kids off the streets in Thailand & Cambodia. Praise God!

This is the day we finished our Debrief & Reentry week with the school and as staff we surrounded the students and prayed & commissioned back to their homes, mission fields & beyond! 🙂

Isaac Peltz! I’ve known Isaac since he was born, he’s my little brother’s best friend! It’s incredible to have seen and been a part of the way God moved in his life and the transformation he experienced! SO thankful to have family here with me! He graduated DTS at the beginning of June and he is now on staff here!

This is the 4th DTS that I’ve lead, on the night they all graduated. 🙂 And the 7th one I’ve been a part of total! In a row! Haha time flies when you’re having fun!! Another group of arrows being sent out to continue growing in Jesus and impacting & influencing the Nations for the Gospel of Christ. After 3 and 1/2 years I’ve been able to be apart of over 160 young adults discipleship journey, and see so many of their salvations, transformations, baptisms in water & in the Spirit, first times preaching, first times evangelizing etc etc etc AHHH SO INCREDIBLE!!! I love what the Lord continues to do over and over, it blows my mind!

Myself and my friend Nathan we sharing during our Staff Training on the history of YWAM Toowoomba! Crazy to think that I’ve here for almost 4 years now!

My friend Daniel Gilman from Ottawa came to Toowoomba for the day to connect with the local pastors group and to see me! So great to see familiar faces 🙂

I love this kid! His name is David and he’s from Nepal. He is learning all about Jesus with an amazing ministry in Hong Kong, a Christian after school tutoring program. I met him the first time I went to Hong Kong and got to hang out with him again this time! We’ve had some really good conversations about who Jesus is and why he’s different than Buddha and Hindu gods. I also got to share with him the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. He loved it!

Nora!! ❤ She was a student on the first school I lead in 2015. She is doing full time missions in Thailand, and she was in Australia for a 3 month school so she came and visited our base and it was so fun catching up with her and seeing how God is using her! I love getting to see the impact of what I'm apart of, 2 years later!

Thank you so much for continuing to be a part of what God is doing over here in Toowoomba! God is doing amazing things in this city, and in the countries we continuously go to (Hong Kong, Thailand, Cambodia, East Timor, greater Australia, Fiji etc). Toowoomba’s art & music community is on fire, and our base has had a huge rule in that! So great to see our staff & students connecting with local artists, and we run events (one of them is called Campfire Sessions) in the city that celebrate artists and minister to them the love of Christ and give them opportunity to play music & do art. We’ve seen so much fruit (artists encouraged, artists seeing Christ, artists experiencing hope and empowerment, instead of depression, comparison, negativity, etc) in the past year as we’ve stepped out as a base in what God has called us to! GOD is a creator, it’s in His nature to create, so it’s in ours as well. We want to change the culture of Toowoomba into the Kingdom Culture through our art :).

These next few months I am going to be:

running our Immigration department

helping with accounts & facilities

on the Leadership Team

helping lead worship in town at different events and at church

teaching on the DTS (on worship leading for an evening, and the Lordship of Christ & Surrender for several days)

& our staff internship (things like integrity in leadership)

helping pioneering our base’s Worship & Prayer ministry project (aiming to encourage and engage people in a culture of worship & prayer, training on how to do that, equipping local churches and abroad in the areas of prayer & worship in their context etc)

and hopefully formulating a Worship Leaders conference/seminar that we can do cross-culturally, either overseas or here in Australia!

So I’m taking a bit of a break from leading DTS’s and I’m excited to see what God has in store 🙂

Thank you so much for staying with me and reading this! ❤

Prayer Requests:

For full restoration of health (I’ve been quite sick for the past few weeks, but now I’m on the mend and almost better!

For creativity and heavenly wisdom as I pioneer this new ministry.

For rest, refocus, & new passion as I enter this new season, I think I got quite sick because I’ve been carrying a lot for a long time, and I need to really focus on building intimacy with Jesus, and reassessing my heart and motivation in ministry etc.

For my car! It’s really struggling and in order to do a lot of the ministry I do, I really need it. There’s a repair that costs about $400 in order to get it running again 😦

For the times I’ll be teaching, that I would have His words!

For the Lord to continue using me in whatever ways He can!

Thank you so so so much for reading this email and continuing in your prayer support of my adventures with YWAM! I pray you are abundantly blessed and enjoy your day!

Feel free to connect with me via email, facebook or follow me on instagram (hmacuzz). I LOVE hearing from you!!! I promise I read everything I receive 🙂

These funds raised will help me continue discipling the next generation of fearless world-wide missionaries and sending them out the nations. It will also help me keep my car on the road and pay for food & rent at the YWAM base 🙂

Dear Family,

Some news from the past few months as I’ve been serving with Youth With A Mission Toowoomba (Australia) 🙂

First off, I had my 26th birthday last July!

July- December I lead my first school on my own (previously I’ve co-lead a couple schools in 2015). This was an incredible experience! They graduated (pictured above) mid-December 2016. I had a team of 4 staff , and we had 13 students from America, Canada & New Zealand. I am so honoured and privileged to have been apart of their training and I’m pleased to say that there was much transformation and many lives transformed through them all on outreach. Here’s an incredible story of one my students: She came into the school unsure of who God was, incredibly insecure and unable to trust people or Jesus, and held back by shame & fear. By the end of DTS, she had laid down the need for comfort from things like food, blankets, make-up, also fear of man, comparison, and complacency in her faith. She picked up things like comfort from the Lord, security in her identity as a daughter of Father, genuine love for others, passion, standing agains the enemy on the Word of Truth, and also a love for intercession! On Outreach I saw her push through so many things and she became a major force of reckoning to the people of Hong Kong and our team as she learned not to be controlled by her feelings or circumstances, but by the Word of the Lord and Holy Spirit. I am so proud of her! She is now continuing walking in the things she’s learned, even at home when things aren’t easy and she is seeking support, the Lord and the Kingdom. So good! Ah!

One of my favourite parts of the School was getting to teach an entire week on the Lordship of Christ. I covered things like who is the Messiah/Christ? What was His purpose? What’s the Gospel? What is true surrender, and what does it look like to live a life surrendered to Jesus reign? What’s holiness? What is our purpose? Why do we need to obey the Lord? It was a powerful week where I stepped out in teaching and in faith as well. The end of the week we had a challenging time of practical surrender and prayer for each other 🙂 Everyone had the chance to pray and ask the Lord about things that we hold onto and give them up at the cross. Then the next day we had a debrief time where we discussed how we walked out in those things practically, and everyone had a story where they were tempted to worry or think about things the same way as before but then dealt with it differently this time! Whether it was to go to someone and ask for prayer to overcome, or to say the truth out loud, or to practically share with someone about Jesus (if they were afraid to do that before) etc. So amazing!

The timing of that week was quite crucial to some, one of the girls found out her mother had cancer & parents were getting divorced, and another girl found out her friend had passed away. There were many tears, but it really moved me to see them go to the Lord straight away and to give them their burdens, and as well for the whole school to grow in relationship & vulnerability with each other. We prayed and ministered with these girls, and the Father really came with peace & hope in the midst of their pain as they gave it all up to Him.

This was a pile of things that we as a class surrendered to the Lord. Wallets to represent finances, passports to represent citizenship, mirrors to represent self image, watches to represent time, pillows to represent comfort, pictures of family etc.

HONG KONG

Myself and another girl on staff lead half the students to Hong Kong, and the other half went with another couple leaders to East Timor. We had an amaaazing time on outreach in Hong Kong working with YWAM Harbour City up in the Northern Territory.

So many stories I could tell again! 🙂 I think one of my favourites was working with a ministry called Shanti Ministries. It’s a Christian Tutoring ministry that works with about 20 Muslim, Buddhist & Hindu school children and tutors them in maths, Chinese, & English. They have volunteer Chinese teachers come in, and once the kids have done their homework, they go into another room and learn about Jesus! We got to work with these kids twice a week for over a month, and really fell in love with all of them. Jesus is moving in their lives and touching their families as well. I was talking with one of the kids, he’s about 12 years old and is from Pakistan. Every day after school he comes to Shanti for a couple hours, is surrounded by love, encouragement and the Lord, and then he goes to a mosque for a couple hours and is surrounded by fear, anger & hopelessness. I was challenged by the amount of wisdom he carried and the pure heart he had, and how even though he was very young could really see the spiritual battle that he and his family is in. I was able to pray for him and prophesy over him, and I continue to pray for him and his family.

Another really cool aspect of our outreach was the amount of intercession & worship we did over the city of Hong Kong & the village the YWAM base is in. We engaged in spiritual warfare by declaring the praises of our King in some of the darkest spiritual places around. We carried around our guitar everywhere and I loved getting to feel atmospheres shift as the place was taken for Holy Ground by a bunch of young Jesus lovers! 😀

We got to also work in a public primary school several times a week teaching English! It’s also completely legal to talk about Jesus there, so we shared taught the kids worship songs and encouraged them to get along and work hard gave them notes about Jesus. These kids were mainly Muslim & Buddhist! Such an incredible opportunity.

I am so overwhelmed by how God strategically had us ministering to mostly young people from the ages of 2- 20. I got so convicted that these kids are SO KEY to revival in Asia! The enemy is trying his utmost best to destroy their lives, suicide rates in kids from 10-18 in Hong Kong, Japan, & China are unreal! We felt a real burden to reach out to these kids and impart JOY and HOPE through Jesus. That was our main focus while we were there. When we would evangelise & worship on the streets we always felt to go counter-culture and sing joyful songs and dance. Haha so fun, and people were really drawn to that, because joy and peace are so evidently missing in that city. Pray for Hong Kong!

My team and some of the amazing youth we got to hang out with! 🙂

Worshiping on the streets!

Shanti Ministries!

Gospel Drama on streets

I was hugely blessed by an opportunity to go to China for the day! 🙂 I left my team in the capable hands of the other leader and traveled to Shenzhen with a couple girls from the base in Hong Kong. Stepping over the border I immediately felt so much joy and peace and confirmation about the potential future opportunities there!

These are a few girls from the High School that we went to a few times! It was amazing, we shared our testimonies, talked about Jesus and sang quite a few worship & pop songs. Such an amazing opportunity and because of this several of the girls from the school went to church with us and heard the gospel even more clearly.

THE NOW:

I’m currently co-leading this DTS which started about 4 weeks ago. There are 21 students from America, Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Germany, England and the Netherlands. One of the students I’ve actually known since he was born! It’s been amazing to help disciple him and hear all the revelations that are challenging and growing him.

I’m serving on the Leadership Team that meets weekly to discuss staff/student issues, base decisions etc.

I also get to teach! I’ve been teaching the DTS on subjects like Worship Leading, Worship & Praise, Bible studying, Missions & Cultural Awareness.

I also am overseeing staff development and Pastoral Care. I meet with about 3 staff girls weekly. Weekly, I run a staff development session that focuses on Leadership Development.

I also serve at a local church here in Toowoomba as well. I am running a Young Adults group with about 7 local young adults from Toowoomba! I love them all, so fun!

Here’s a picture of a few of them 🙂 So excited to keep seeing them grow and challenged in the Lord.

This school I won’t be leading an outreach team, but I’m hoping to go to Hong Kong again at the end of April with another staff member to scout out a potential future music & worship partnership between our two bases.

Thank you so so so much for reading this email and continuing in your prayer support of my adventures with YWAM! I pray you are abundantly blessed and enjoy your day!

Feel free to connect with me via email, facebook or follow me on instagram (hmacuzz). I am not the greatest at responding, but I LOVE hearing from you!!! I promise I read every email I receive 🙂 Now I am working at scheduling in times into my schedule to reply to all of them, so if you’ve sent me an email in the past bit and I haven’t responded yet, don’t worry! An answer is coming!

Also, if you feel lead to support me financially either monthly or one time donation please check out paypal.me/hannahmacuzzi, or https://www.gofundme.com/hannah-macuzzi or for tax refundable receipts go to: https://chimp.net/groups/hannah-macuzzi-mh06

These funds raised will help me continue discipling the next generation of fearless world-wide missionaries and sending them out the nations. It will also help me keep my car on the road, and to travel to Hong Kong in April. I’m in need of about $1500 for Hong Kong 🙂

Hey there!

As you may remember in my last update of my time in Australia, I’ve been asked to stay on after my commitment of one year ends in December. I’m going to be the School Leader of the Discipleship Training School that starts in January 2015 and ends in July 2015! Because this extension was unexpected, I didn’t save enough money to actually finish my time here. Rent costs about $300 a month, and my last outreach phase (I’m leading a team back to East Timor in March) will cost roughly $2,000. I also will need to renew my visa and health insurance. This brings the total I need to raise to about $5,000.

Here is an excerpt from my last blog to explain a little bit more about what being a School Leader means 🙂

“I have been asked to stay for the coming January school to be School Leader! That means that during the school I will be working with our Training Director planning for it, processing applications, building the schedule of speakers, log This means I am extending my commitment here for another 6 months. Which also means, I am going to come home for about 2 weeks in September because I won’t be able to afford to come home at Christmas. Woo!! Hope to see some of you then! :)”

My sister Andrea and sister-in-law Merry are helping me plan a Spaghetti Dinner Fundraiser in a couple weeks when I come home for a visit to fundraise and be in a wedding. I won’t be able to come home for Christmas because of new school, so it will be nice to see everyone, especially my new niece and nephew! 🙂

If you are in the Ottawa area and interested in attending, here is the event info:

Where: 3123 Carp Rd. Ottawa, Ontario

When: September 7, 2014

Time: 5:30-9pm

Cost: $10 per adult, $5.00 per child

Spaghetti Dinner, Dessert Auction, Live Music, Child Care provided

Performances by Joey McNitt and Amy Dagenais, a couple of young, talented, local Christian artists from Ottawa

I will be leading us in a time of worship at the end and sharing about my ministry!

Thank you all so so so much for reading this and continuing in your prayer support of my adventures with YWAM! I pray you are abundantly blessed and enjoy your day! Hope to see some of you in a couple weeks!

Oh yes!! We are in our 5th week of lectures (Relationships week) and it’s been fantastic! The students are continuously working through past hurts and issues and getting freedom and healing!! It’s amazing! Last week was Repentance week and it was incredible to watch students be lifted from such shame! There were several people’s faces and posture that literally changed 100%!!!! Ah!! Seriously!!

ALSO! I am going to Fiji! We are heading out on October 7th! Our team has 6 students and then myself and my co-leader Jared! Please be praying for our preparation and finances for the team!

We are just about to start Week #5 here at the YWAM Toowoomba Music & Worship DTS! We’ve had an incredible four weeks, covering the Character and Nature of God, Openness & Brokenness, Spiritual Warfare and Relationships & Identity.

Cacti!

Week #1was great! We had a great first weekend to orientate them all on life at YWAM Toowoomba. It was Australia Day on that Sunday, so we celebrated it by cooking sausages and kangaroo (not too shabby) and playing cricket! Jason Solari, director of the Film School at YWAM Brisbane, spoke on the Character and Nature of God and of Hearing God’s voice. He is a great guy that just finished directing and producing an indie film called The Umbrella. One thing that really impacted them was that communication is 93% non-verbal! We did an exercise where we got in groups of two and stared into each others eyes for 2 minutes. We weren’t allowed to laugh or touch our face. It was crazy how much you could communicate!! 🙂 He told a lot of stories as well that encouraged their faith in stepping out, and increased their hunger to know God! http://www.theumbrellamovie.com/

My small group! Made up of my one-on-ones.L to R: Kendra (Alberta), Sarah (California), myself, Alina (Germany), and Caroline (Brazil)

Week #2 brought in Pablo Nunez, Director of YWAM South Australia. He spoke on Repentance, Openness & Brokenness. He gave the students many opportunities to be vulnerable and receive healing for many things. There was incredible breakthrough! Especially the Thursday night and Friday morning, they broke out into confession and prayer for about 8 hrs! It was beautiful! Many were set free from shame, condemnation, heavy bondage and oppression.

Sitting on the edge of a cliff!

Week #3 Andrew Hooey, a pastor from Toowoomba and founder of Freedom Life Ministries, came and taught about Spiritual Warfare. It was actually quite funny because there was a lot of actual spiritual warfare that surrounded the week. The students were really battling abnormal apathy and sleepiness. By thursday morning small groups, everyone was realizing they were not alone in it so they began to pray and fight! Thursday morning lecture was a like a breath of fresh air and they actually got so much out of it! Not to mention that the practical part of battling in prayer and seeing the heaviness lift off of them was very encouraging. Most of them had not grown up around this kind of teaching, so it was awesome to see them respond with so many questions! By the end of the week, pretty much everyone lost their fear and/or passivity of the demonic realms and received revelation of the authority of Christ and also an awareness that there is much more happening around than we think 🙂

The fearless female staff!

Week #4an incredibly heavy week! We are still recovering (in a good way) from it! Marty Emmett from YWAM Tauranga NZ spoke on Relationships and Identity! We tackled lies and truths. From 11am-9:30pm Wednesday, and then most of Thursday and Friday morning the students got up on a chair and went through the ‘4 Rs’ – Repentance, Receive (forgiveness), Rebuke (the enemy and thoughts), and Replace (with Truth). Basically they repented for the different lies they’d struggled with, and were set free of more shame, comparison, anger, unworthiness, hopelessness etc. We also spent a lot of time creating a culture of affirmation! Literally spending hours affirming and calling out the gold in each other. This weekend everybody has been kind of walking around in a daze, processing their freedom! It’s great. Literally every single student has overcome numerous issues. All of my one-on-ones have been conquering intense self-identity and fear issues. Watching them step into confidence in their identities as daughters of God has blessed me so much! I love them so much! The Lord has been so good in their lives! I can’t wait to see more!

Tabletop Mountain (it literally looks like a tabletop, there is a picture of this mountain on my last post “Hey from OZ”)! We can see this mountain from our base, so we went and climbed it! 🙂

East Timor!

Outreach! We announced our outreach teams last Sunday! It was hilarious! I am, along with my co-leader Katherine, leading a team to Dili, East Timor (Timor-Leste) April 23-May 23. The first 3 weeks of April we will be working with EasterFest (the music festival I talked about in my last post). We actually will be hosting quite a few of the artists at our YWAM base! So that should be a lot of fun actually! 🙂

We have 9 students on our team.Caleb (Quebec), Joel (Washington State), John (California), Keith (Alberta), Rachael (California), Alina (Germany), Anna (Alberta), Kayla (Michigan) and Evelien (Belgium). We had our first official team meeting on Friday night. It was great, we played a few team-bonding games and we’ve been really praying into our trip! We will be working with the YWAM base in Dili. Teaching English in orphanages and schools, street evangelism, church ministry (dramas, preaching, teaching, worship leading), prayer walking/intercession, lots of kids ministry and some village ministry. We’re so excited to join with what the Lord is doing in East Timor!

Random: This past Thursday our student and staff guys put on a wonderful night for us ladies! It was quite phenomenal actually, most of the girls had never ever been treated with such love and respect by men that when we had our ‘debrief’ (the speaker was training them in how to treat women as part of the ‘Relationships’ part of the week), most everybody was crying! The guys did all the thinking and planning on their own, and it was a magical night to say the least! They made invitations (beautiful ones!) and hung them on our doors, dressed in black and whites to serve us a 3 course meal they made themselves, had made individual cards for each girl with encouraging words and verses, gave a rose and their arm to lead us to our seats (they even had chosen a guy to be maitre’d), and at the end washed our feet and prayed for us. Oh! And they created a photo booth and fondue party to end the night. Haha! Needless to say, they past the gentleman test with flying colours. The girls were blown away by how much they were enjoying it, and were whole heartedly doing it! And the thought behind it! So much details 🙂 Such a fun time!

Last night we had an open mic night where everyone had to perform originals! This school is FILLED with talent!!!

Myself and Evelien, one of the students on my East Timor outreach team. She is from Belgium! 🙂

Financial: If you are interested in supporting me financially, I was able to connect with YWAM Canada and they can and will issue Canadian tax receipts. All you have to do is click on the link below and there are three options If you choose the sending a cheque option, please make it payable to Youth With A Mission and put a separate note on the cheque (such as a sticky note) saying “Hannah Macuzzi, serving with YWAM Toowoomba”. They do not want anything written in the memo section of the cheque

—-> Myself and Kat as we plan and prep for outreach! That we would have the grace and wisdom in what the Lord has for us to do. That we would be able to humbly and wisely lead our students!

—-> Financial needs to be met within the team for outreach.

—-> Strength and desire for the students to keep pressing in during the remaining lecture weeks.

—-> For God to keep bringing revelation to change hearts and minds of all us!

—-> Unity among the staff team, and the outreach leads!

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this! I pray you are blessed and your life enriched by the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. If you have any questions feel free to email me!! hannah.macuzzi@gmail.com

“We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.”

— Arthur O’Shaughnessy

This melancholy poem was once the outlook that I had on life, particularly in my own. The nomadic spirit that the Lord has placed on me can occasionally be confused with alienation, isolation, loneliness and a general sense of not belonging anywhere, that is, if perceived through a worldly or non-biblical perspective. It can lead to sadness, depression, self-pity, rejection, and a whole host of other ungodly emotions!

At times, there is this assumption or idea that there is a great cost to being a Mover of the earth and a Shaker of the world. But the more time I spent with my Maker, the more I realized that I was not called to move the earth and shake the world, but He has called me to move His heart. And of course, shaking the earth just so happens to be a natural (or should I say supernatural) by-product of moving His heart. While this life is not promised to be comfortable, it IS filled with the promise of His abundant love and the love of His people. One thing I’ve learned from world-traveling, is not that I am alone, but that I am in the largest family known to man-kind! Every where I move or go, He is there and so is His body! It is supernatural + phenomenal.

Speaking of moving…. guess what? I’m moving to AUSTRALIA! I know, eh! What?! Haha! Yep, you see, it is a long story. Let’s start where I last left off! In case you missed that, head over to the post titled ‘Surprise’.

–> https://consecratedbygrace.wordpress.com/2013/03/18/surprise-d/

Sooo, here goes!

Back in May of 2013, my church offered me a position on their staff. At that time, I had been home for two months and had watched and waited for something. Anything really. It’s very weird for me not to be doing stuff. Lots of stuff. Which, in itself was a lesson straight from the Lord! He started teaching me to live extraordinary in the ordinary. To live loud in the silence. Phewie, that’s a hard one, and boy, am I still learning!

So anyway, back to my church, I accepted the job offer in May and became a temporary Youth Pastor to eight of the coolest kids around. Now, when I said yes, I never ever in a million years saw myself doing the youth pastor thing. I’m not sure why, it was just never on my radar! But I wouldn’t trade these past eight months for anything. I fell in love with my kids! I’ve watched them grow in the Lord, with each other, and in hunger; it’s been awesome. I even got them making music! When we started, there were only two confident musicians. We now have a solid team of two guitars, a piano, a keyboard, an ukelele, a drummer and some nice vocalists! They sound amazing! Honestly, when we started I wasn’t very optimistic, bahaha!

Some of the youth and I at a local outreach! 🙂

I’ve also been in charge of the worship ministry at the church. I’ve done all the logistics, creativity, encouraging, mentoring, facilitating, and communicating. I’ve been able to witness the worship team expand, help leaders grow into their authority and freedom, and experience some beautiful moments with the Lord and our congregation! Watching our unity grow has been wonderful as well!

Tranquil Acres Camping

That same week I was offered the job at the church, I was approached by a woman who owns a trailer/rv camping grounds with her husband. They were getting on in their years and the physical labour was getting to be too much. She asked me if I would like to work for them. They would give me as many or little hours as I needed, and they’d work around my other commitments. They gave me a bike, as it was only about a 25 minute bike ride from my house. And I’d be working outside doing physical labour and the campgrounds were spectacular. Every single thing about this job was an answer to my prayers, and hers! Did I mention one of my prayers was that my bosses would love the Lord? What an answer! She is a mighty prayer warrior, and it often you’d find her lifting up her voice to the Lord! My favourite times were when we would get together and pray for the campground. Such a precious time of learning and being humbled by this woman’s faith! By the end of the season (there are so many crazy God stories involved with this!) all the campers (most were not Christians) were talking about how much joy and life I had and how I brought a smile to their hearts even on their worst day. Ha! I love how the Lord is so evident even when we don’t have a clue! I was just doing my thing, working away! It was like a puzzle and all the pieces were coming together. He is so faithful eh? When we wait on Him? It’s all in His timing! Back to Australia!

That same week as both job offers, I was looking around on different mission sites just for fun. Okay confession: I had the thought “So I’m single, 23 and can go anywhere in the world, literally…” And I ended up on the YWAM page! I randomly looked up “worship staff opportunities” because once you’ve done a DTS you could potentially staff at any of their bases, and there were about a billion different options. I clicked on several but nothing really made me actually interested… that is until I clicked on the YWAM Toowoomba link! Honestly, I had no idea where that even was. Turns out, it’s in Queensland, Australia!

Toowoomba!!

The base runs a Music & Worship Discipleship Training School (DTS). So I submitted a short form of interest to staff there, and was just expecting an automated response with the costs, commitment length etc. Instead, I got this remarkably long, personal email from the Base Director and his wife, explaining the history and heart of the base, their vision (matched up with my passions exactly), and their need for female staff! Especially those with worship leading experience. They answered most of my questions before I even asked them and they even offered to help with my flight there! WHAT! Almost unheard of! So I freaked out. Showed my parents, my church leadership and some friends. Everyone said, “Well Hannah this is pretty much you to a tee. Jesus. Worship. Travel. Disciple. Dance. Pray (they are in the midst of opening a House of Prayer). Music. Missions. Unreached People Groups. Australia. You will kick yourself if you do not consider this opportunity!” So I prayed and prayed, and so did my leadership and my parents etc. I got several confirmations, so I sent in my visa application (ANOTHER ONE! I will probably end up writing a book on visas for missionaries, haha) and waited! Oh! And not to mention, those jobs that the Lord set me up with enabled me to save a good chunk of the costs of going! Being on staff with YWAM is basically being a full-time missionary, and we have to raise our own support and such. I finished the campground job in November and heard from Immigration a couple of weeks after that, and it’s official! The Australian government granted me a 12 month visa! I am finishing up at the church the 5th, and I will be heading to Toowooomba on January 8th. My director even gave me an extra week because he found out both my sisters are due to have their babies within then next couple weeks! So awesome! Praise the Lord! So, I’ve got a billion other testimonies from these past 9 months being home. But needless to say, the Lord has been at work since day one. Even that day where I the U.S. sent me home and I had no idea what the future would hold! It was all a part of His plan… who knew that it would turn out THIS cool? I never ever thought I would go to Australia. And now, here I am, moving there.

If you are interested in more details of what my mission will actually look like, stay tuned for another post in the near future. Or email me at hannah.macuzzi@gmail.com

While talking with a friend about to embark on World Race (An 11 month missions trip to 11 different countries), I decided to give her some tips that I’ve learned through personal experience and hanging out with Jesus a lot. These are very random and off the top of my head, but I realized after that they are actually very key and vital points for life in general, along with foreign missions. So I figured, why not share ’em?? 😀 Enjoy!

1. Hold onto the beatitudes like they are your life.

2. Always go to the Lord first with any emotion you are feeling and see if they are in line with His.

3. Put others before yourself.

4. Let things slide even if they bother you… most of the time offence is unnecessary because the offending person is usually not doing it personally but is going through something themself and they are insecure/defending/or just plain ignorant that whatever it was would offend you.

5. We all have had incredibly different pasts, and reactions will vary depending on who is in what situation, so ask for a lot of grace because there will probably be reactions that you don’t agree with.

6. Always consult the Holy Spirit in every circumstance and situation.

8. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.

9. For suffering/trials/tribulation/persecution (of any kind)… have the mindset that to be counted worthy of that, is an incredibly high honour, and to share in Christ’s sufferings will bring beautiful amounts of intimacy.

10. Honour honour honour honour everyone around you.

11. Do words of life (encouragement) for the whole team as often as possible.

12. Be open and willing to try/do anything.

(unless it is sinful hahahha)

13. Enjoy every second and put your whole being into every second because 11 months is actually very short!

14. If there is ever a time that you don’t want to do ministry or something that you know you should, do it anyways because you are not there for you. You are there for the Lord, the people on your team, and the people you are ministering too.

15. Read your bible

16. Worship together as a team often.

17. Go deep with each other, it is so easy to just stay surfacey/do life together and you will regret it not having found out everything you can about each other!

18. Look at situations from above, not at the same level or below.

19. There is always something deeper happening than you think.

20. USE SQUATTY POTTYS THEY ARE THE BEST

21. Learn them correctly and you will love life.

22. Bring hand sanitizer everywhere.

23. Don’t talk to foreign men alone or consistently, they will think you love them and want to get married asap.

24. Learn as many languages as you can, as much as you can!

25. Do language games with the kids, it’s hilarious and you will learn really quick.

26. Learn people’s names and say them often in your conversations.

27. Bring your burdens (especially the ones for other people) before the Lord, and leave them there.

28. Walk in holiness (by the Spirit, not the flesh) because – ‘He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk in integrity.” Prov 2:7

Added #29. Holy Spirit’s other name is Teacher, so take advantage of it! He is a very gracious (praise the Lord) and good one at that! Phewie!

Welp, that’s all I got for now!!!! Hope that made sense and such :))) God Bless! OH and I’m planning on writing an update on what I’ve been doing with my life for the past several months soon!! Stay tuned!